Regarding "Castro, Patrick both claiming victory after raucous debate" (Page B1, Wednesday), few Texans got to listen in on a very important public debate between Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio and state Sen. Dan Patrick.

Unless you were one of the lucky ones in the studio audience or the few who saw the live streaming online, no one saw this.

What did we learn from this debate? Not a lot of new roads were cut. Patrick, a bit mindful of the audience in the studio at Univision took his typical right-wing AM radio bloviating down a step. Castro was passionate, if not a bit professorial, in his attempt to educate the senator.

In the end, Patrick conceded that for infants or babies in the United States illegally, it "wasn't their fault." But solutions? Somewhere between Mitt Romney's self-deportation and World War II roundups of undesireables.

Patrick offered no real viable solutions and the "fear" is that there's no benefit to Texas or America. This, despite the facts as noted by most agribusiness and other nongovernmental organizations that a guest worker program or path to citizenry actually benefits us all.

Castro, by contrast, offered specifics and common-sense pathways toward a solution, demonstrating that educating the children here by no fault of their own at a minimum pays dividends.

Conservative fearmongering versus progressive common sense. The mayor triumphed, but if Patrick has his way, Texas and America will lose.

A.S. Gamson, Klein

Compassion?

I watched the debate and was impressed by the eloquent rhetoric in which Patrick wrapped his formerly harsh opinions.

The best retort Castro had that he did not emphasize strongly enough was that there was once close agreement on the immigration debate in Texas between Republicans and Democrats and Patrick has helped change that.

The reality is that since Texas Gov. Rick Perry was rebuked for showing immigrants compassion in the presidential debates, conservatives in Texas have escalated their push to drop compassionate from conservatism. The problem is once they drop compassionate conservatism, regardless of the eloquence, what is left is confrontational conservatism.